Demolition of old police quarters in Belagavi to start within 1 month

Belagavi: The demolition of 187 police quarters in the city will begin within a month, said city police commissioner T G Krishna Bhatta.
The government has ordered demolition of 156 city lane police residential quarters and 31 quarters under Shahapur police station limits. It plans to construct multi-storeyed buildings in the areas concerned.
Bhatta told TOI that the PWD has measured the salvage value of the old structures.He said that the department prefers to construct multi-storeyed buildings for police personnel, instead of using more area.
The home department has approved six PSI quarters and 144 police constable quarters in the city under the 3rd phase of police housing scheme 2020. These quarters include 36 in Hirebagewadi and 12 in Kakati. The Karnataka Housing Corporation will take up the construction work.
After inspecting the quarters, former city police commissioner Soumendu Mukherjee was convinced that the structures are unfit for dwelling. He also sent a report to the government in this regard last year.
The structures in city lane — converted into police quarters — were actually barns used by the British. Their condition is pathetic and most of them are partially damaged. It was a long-pending demand of police personnel to repair the quarters.
Apart from the pathetic structures, nearly 1,200 police staff and their family members are struggling with many other issues like leakages in water pipeline and bad roads. Due to such problems, most police personnel opt to stay in rented houses. Considering these issues, the government decided to demolish the old buildings and build new ones.